In the usual course of moving and storing grain, including wheat, corn, soy beans, oats, millet or other granular materials, harvesters work the fields and store the grain in internal hoppers until full. The harvesters contain conveyors to move the harvested grain into a truck trailer which can then be driven to a community elevator. At the community elevator, the trailer is positioned over a grate in the pavement surface and outflow doors in the bottom of the truck trailer open to flow the grain through the grates into a conveyor which then carries the grain into an elevator bin. Farm operators are increasingly turning to self storage rather than relying upon and paying the storage fees of the larger community elevator. In the farm storage situation, the grain must be unloaded from the hopper bottomed truck trailer into bins in the farmyard. As it is the rare farmyard that would have a concrete driveway area with a grate through which the grain is dumped, the grain must be received by an extension conveyor which then connects with a primary conveyor to carry the grain from the outlet of the truck trailer and into the storage bin.
Various types of extension or companion conveyors have been invented; however, many of them do not lie sufficiently flat against a ground surface to readily accept dumping of grain through the truck trailer hopper doors. Further, many companion conveyors are not handily stored and transportable with the primary conveyor. Many tend to be unwieldy in use and even more unwieldy in storage or in transport, necessitating that the companion conveyor be stored and transported separately from the primary conveyor. While this situation is acceptable for a fixed operation, when the conveyors must be moved from location to location, these machines are often unsatisfactory. Some require substantial mechanical work with tools for partial disassembly before moving.